THE MONSTER WITHIN US CRACKED

“So the next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or bike path, do not hesitate,” Carlson advised. That attitude flip-flopped in a year.Ī year later, in June of this year, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson was urging his viewers to confront people wearing masks, labeling mask wearers “the aggressors.” That was not the case in that June 25 th Pew poll in which a solid majority of both Democrats and Republicans did not feel people should face (pun intended) criticism for wearing a mask. At the same time, we’re seeing a growing movement not just to disavow masks but taking an aggressive stance against them. Most of that drop came from Republicans who had been converted into unbelievers in vaccinations and their effectiveness. In September of 2020, the percentage of Americans who said they would receive COVID-19 vaccinations when they became available took a sharp drop -72% to 51% - when compared to those who felt the same three months before. Of course, the death count at that time had a long way to go before the 725,000 we’ve reached to date, but it intimates the onset of a political division that will lead us to where we are. A Pew Research Center poll released on June 25, 2020, told us that the majority of Republicans (61%) believed that “the worst (of the pandemic) is behind us.” Seventy-six percent of Democrats polled, in contrast, believed that the worst was yet to come. The dividing line is obvious, and it started taking shape more than a year ago. I didn’t want to believe in algebra, but that didn’t help me pass the tests.

But to discredit legitimate and proven science because it is something you don’t want to believe in is, well, ignorant. It is true that science has been used for propaganda, as in the Nazi claim that Aryan superiority was scientifically proven, but that’s junk science much like some of the weird conspiracy stuff we’re seeing on the Worldwide Web. ProPublica is a fact-finding nonprofit supported by donations whose efforts to report abuses of the public trust are not beholding to any special interest, either liberal or conservative.įor those who see science as propaganda for liberal causes, it is probably too late to convert you into a believer in the miracles of science. ProPublica, by the way, is the place to go for nonpartisan investigative reporting on politics, government, business and social institutions which include churches, schools and even families. You don’t walk around with a hypodermic needle protruding from your arm. Cross it and it seems you are making a political statement instead of a health decision.Īs for vaccinations, once desperately sought to save us from the killing pandemic as emergency rooms and funeral parlors began doing too much business, it is not immediately evident whether you are pro-vax or anti-vax. Wearing a mask puts you on one side and refusing to wear one on the other. In a well-researched October 7 article for ProPublica, Sarah Smith takes a fascinating look at how COVID-19 has turned Americans against each other, notably on the importance, even constitutionality, of wearing or not wearing masks and getting vaccinated. ProPublica, October 7, 2021, “We’re Losing Our Humanity and the Pandemic Is to Blame” It’s about communicating what side you’re on. Because the mask has become so polarizing, the extreme reactions aren’t really about being asked to wear one for an hour. Our inner child freaks out, but its screams are drowned by our moans as our monsters bring us to orgasm.Sometimes the simplest demands can turn a man into a monster. As adults, we burn down the sanctuaries we created as children. Sometimes we even do the unthinkable: we invite them to our bed. Sometimes we spot them, sometimes we don't. They slip things into our drinks at parties and offer us jobs.

They sit next to us on the metro and jog around our neighborhoods. Suddenly they dress nicely, speak our language, and share our customs. We stop looking under the bed once we realize that the monsters are inside us. He would kiss my cheek and switch off the light. I remember trying to explain how some monsters had invisibility cloaks. I remember begging my father to check under the bed. Not even my hair exposed, lest a monster discover and devour me. I sometimes slept with the covers over my head. I took care that no arms or legs protruded from the bed.

THE MONSTER WITHIN US CRACKED

I was terrified of the closed closet door that surely cracked open when I wasn't looking and spewed out ghouls and devils. “Do you remember bedtime as a child? I was terrified of the dark.

The monster within us